The Essays (back to contents)

Leiomyomas, myometrial hyperplasia, osteoarthritis, serotonin autoreceptor transcription, xiphoid, omentum, vitiligo, drosophila—words that will drive your spell-check program crazy, but terms that many successful applicants to medical school are so familiar with, they use them in their personal statements and secondary essays. This points up the first similarity we found in the applicant essays: Almost all of them mention hospital or medical research experience.

There are other common traits worth mentioning. Most applicants have volunteered, usually in a medical field. Many have traveled to a poor region to perform some type of community service. Some have shadowed working doctors. A few have intriguing opening sentences:

• “For some time now, I have had to endure teeth-clenching pain on a weekly basis.”
• “Who would’ve thought I’d spend two years of my life talking about parasites?”
• “The screaming of the little boy’s mother shattered the relative serenity of the room.”
• “‘American Invention to Destroy Sex,’ the boy answered matter-of-factly.”

Most essays reflect a person who is multifaceted, like the applicant who was a basketball player/motorbike mechanic/philosopher/would-be doctor. But within these common bonds, each successful applicant also must reveal his individuality, and the essay is the opportunity.

For organizational purposes only, we divided the essays into seven groups. These groups are artificial, so do not feel that you must write an essay that would neatly fit into one of these categories. In fact, it was difficult to separate them, as most of the essays overlap in subject matter. However, they share a tone of sincerity that is crucial. These are hopeful applicants who want to improve the quality of life. That’s what has drawn them to this profession.

Since the authors of several essays requested anonymity, we occasionally deleted proper names and substituted a general name or date for a specific reference. However, our changes to the essays never distort the intent of the author.

Read Them All (back to contents)

Let’s get one thing straight: The essays in this book are not standards that you have to meet in order to get into medical school. Some of you might have essays in your head far better than anything here. (If so, let us read them! Click here for information on submitting your essays for the next edition of this book.) These are simply forty-one essays that worked, not the only essays that worked.

We hope that you will first read all the essays. There’s a wide range here; some are 500 words, some are 5,000. Some have dialogue, some are aggressive, some are reflective. The question you should ask yourself as you read is not, “Is this a good essay?” but rather, “Do I get to know this writer from this essay?” If you are an admissions officer, you will also ask, “Now that I know this applicant, does he/she match my school?”

Getting into medical school is definitely not a writing contest; the competition is more subtle than that. More important than how well you write is how well you illustrate who you are and why a particular school is right for you. Believe it or not, the admissions officer wants what’s best for you. With the ever-increasing quality of the applicant pool, most schools have little trouble filling their first-year classes. Your task is to communicate something new and meaningful about yourself to someone who knows you only by your numbers.

A Warning (back to contents)

Finally, a warning. We know that no one would be foolish enough to copy any of these essays verbatim. However, some readers might be tempted to take an essay and “change it around a little” to suit his application. We hope you know how stupid that would be. For one thing, stealing an idea or a phrase from an essay in this book would be dishonest. This type of “cheating” on the application will guarantee your rejection from the medical school. Stanford University rescinded admission to a first-year student two months into the academic year when they discovered the essay had been plagiarized.

Remember, this is a popular book. Many admissions officers have read it and are familiar with each essay. No admissions officer would ever admit a plagiarist.

The following is the story of an admissions counselor from a prestigious college who wrote to us after she learned we were revising the Essays That Worked series. The anecdote speaks for itself.

When I was Associate Dean of Admissions at Georgetown in the (late 80’s), we were asked to select memorable essays from among the applications of students who were being admitted. Two enterprising Yale graduates had requested samples of “essays that worked” to publish in a guidebook aimed at a high school audience. Because of our involvement in the project, we received several complimentary copies of the volume, which I read out of curiosity.

This background knowledge proved useful during my tenure on the George Washington University admissions staff in a subsequent year. Imagine my surprise when I reviewed an application, only to recognize one of the examples from Essays that Worked. Although the student had elaborated on the original theme, the initial paragraph was, word for word, part of an essay that appeared in the book.

The student who plagiarized was unequivocally denied, even though he would normally have been a good candidate. Instead of increasing his chances of admission, he instantly destroyed the value of all his academic achievements over three and a half years. I shared with his college counselor the reason for our decision, knowing that the message would be relayed to the student. What a shame! He didn’t trust his own ability to be impressive enough.

The following pages demonstrate the creative potential of the personal statement and the secondary essay. We hope these essays will inspire you when you begin to write, and we hope they will give you the confidence to write a bold, personal piece that is truly your own and that will help an admissions officer see why you are special. Enjoy the essays, study them, and let them be a catalyst for your own creativity.

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